[plug] Telstra Sat

[Aaron Townley]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2001, Brian Tombleson wrote:

> Does anyone know about the Telstra Sat Internet system and how to use it
> under Linux?
>
> I believe there are two systems - a one-way and a two-way.  I know someone
> who's getting the one-way and wants a Linux box to handle the connection
> istead of shelling out for MS platforms that are all that's supported.
> Telstra support are hopless as they can't even give me a model of the PCI
> card used.
>
> Thee's three issues that I can see:
> How does the routing work?
> Is the PCI card supported (FCCID:??)?
> How does a firewall work?
>
> The answer to the last question is "It doesn't." - which is a real worry,
> but can anyone help with the other two?
>
> Any pointers appreciated.
>

I've had Telstra sat at home since Febuary and I would never recommend it to anyone. It uses the DirecPC (www.direcpc.com) system and will not work under linux (I've been trying for 8 months now).

Basically all your outgoing packets are encapsulated in IPIP and sent to a gateway which then sends all the data back down your Sat link.

There's a group called Helius (www.helius.com) that wrote a module for the card but its only written for certain kernel versions and they wont release the source. Months ago I gave up in making it work under linux and built a dedicated Win98 box running Winroute (Not many win32 nat programs support the DirecPC interface). The box was constantly crashing and would slow down to a halt for no known reason. Oh, and everytime the modem disconnected the machine would reboot (tried in multiple machines to prove it wasnt a PC hardware fault).

I've recently gone back to 56k dialup as its much faster and more reliable.

-- 
Aaron Townley
NetWest.